HM 221

1	House Memorial
2	A memorial to the Congress of the United States, urging
3	unified resistance to proposals for the revision of
4	measures protecting the coastline of Florida against oil
5	and gas drilling.
6
7	WHEREAS, Florida's Congressional Delegation has long stood
8	united against proposals for oil and gas drilling off the
9	state's coasts, and
10	WHEREAS, across party lines, Florida's representatives in
11	Congress have long recognized that the protection of Florida's
12	fragile coastal ecology is vital to the state's economy as well
13	as its ecology, and have understood that, in Florida, the
14	economy and the ecology are indeed inseparable, and
15	WHEREAS, one major oil spill off the coast of Florida,
16	which is always a possibility regardless of advances in safety
17	and engineering, would jeopardize Florida's multi-billion-dollar
18	tourism industry, and
19	WHEREAS, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated beyond
20	doubt the extraordinary risks of placing additional drilling
21	operations in the Gulf of Mexico - a short-term economic risk
22	and a long-term ecological risk, and
23	WHEREAS, routine offshore drilling operations discharge
24	thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into surrounding waters,
25	smother bottom-dwelling organisms and sea grasses with cuttings
26	and debris, and generate large amounts of air pollution, and
27	WHEREAS, scientists have alerted the public to the
28	presently unpredictable results of contaminating marine
29	organisms and ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico, which are a
30	vital part of the food chain throughout the Southeastern United
31	States and the entire country, and
32	WHEREAS, the Energy Information Service has determined that
33	the United States owns only 3 percent of the world's proven oil
34	reserves, and therefore expanded offshore drilling would not
35	reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and
36	WHEREAS, society stands at a point at which our almost
37	exclusive reliance on oil drilling has led to many of the
38	problems we face today, and the energy policy of this nation
39	should henceforth be based on the use of viable 21st-century
40	energy sources, NOW, THEREFORE,
41
42	Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
43
44	That the Congress of the United States is urged to stand
45	strong and united against any attempt to allow oil or gas
46	drilling along Florida's coastline.
47	BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
48	dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
49	President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
50	United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
51	the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.

CODING: Words stricken are deletions; words underlined are additions.